The Five Tests
by Raivis-Latvijas
Summary: Five representations. Five different tests. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Croatia, are abducted by a mysterious man who refers to himself as the Puppeteer, and are forced to undergo grueling, cryptic trials in order to save their own lives. OCs, Swearing, Violence. Possible historical inaccuracies.


The first thing he saw, was nothing. He did not know precisely where he was. He did not remember getting here. He remembered going to sleep after a long day of meetings, and now he was waking up in the pitch dark.

For obvious reasons, knew he was in an unlit room, lying on the floor. Under his hands, it felt padded; almost as if he were in some kind of padded cell like you would see in an insane asylum.

Suddenly, a voice called out to him through a speaker somewhere. It was muffled, as if the speaker were behind one of the layers of padding that may have covered the walls.

"_Zlatko Pilav, representation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska... Do not be alarmed. You are here for a reason. Refer to me as the Puppeteer, if you wish to speak."_

Bosnia stayed silent, staring into darkness, listening closely to the voice that spoke to him.

"_I am not going to lie; what I am doing is illegal. I have taken you, and four others, and put you in different situations. You will have to use your intelligence, and push past your fears to get out of where you are. Zlatko Pilav, you are in a padded cell. Some of the padding is weak. Some of it is rigged to hurt you upon applying too much pressure. Some of it merely plays a sound through the speaker upon applying that pressure. There is a door here, Zlatko, but you must find it, and the key. You must get through the padding without wounding yourself too badly to continue. Once you are out, you will receive new directions."_

"And if I don't want to play this game of yours, Puppeteer?" Zlatko asked.

"_You will never get out."_

"Very fair." The Bosnian representation's voice was sarcastic, but he sat up and sighed slightly. He guessed he would play along.

"_Use your hands to feel the answer. Use your mind to feel the danger."_

How cryptic. This Puppeteer, whoever he was, had abducted Bosnia and four others and had forced them to play this game. Perhaps the four others were in different situations, but they had to be just as odd, and the others had to think this was incredibly suspicious.

Blindly ambling around in the darkness, he eventually found a wall. They were in fact padded, and some felt weaker than others. It felt like six inch by twelve inch rectangles; enough to hide things like traps and buttons, and the speaker that the Puppeteer was talking through.

Feeling around, he decided to test his luck, applying some pressure to feel through the padding of a weaker section. Without warning, some static-laced voices were played loudly through the speaker in the room.

"_Bodies have been discovered in another mass grave near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina… This is something no one expected to find after the war."_

So that's what the Puppeteer was doing. This was meant to drive Bosnia into madness, using his memories against him. Srebrenica… The site of a traumatic massacre in the Bosnian War, was something that could easily make Zlatko lose his composure. The way his people were killed by the Serbs…

He couldn't let it get to him. He couldn't let the Puppeteer win his game. He was trying to make Bosnia lose it; trying to make him too unstable to find the key and the door behind the padding.

He, with caution, placed his hand on another weak part of the padded wall, feeling something oddly shaped beneath it. He was apprehensive, but applied some pressure, only to be jolted by an electric current that sent a sharp wave of pain through his body, making him flinch and stumble backwards.

One trap was down. There were probably many more. An electric shock wasn't going to do too much to deter Bosnia from his goal of finding his way out, but it was enough to give him an idea of what to expect. The Puppeteer wasn't afraid to hurt him.

But pain wasn't a problem.

With a deep, calm breath, the representation placed his hands upon the wall again, searching steadily.

][][][

He pulled at the restraints on his wrists and legs, arching his back painfully, trying to escape his confinement. Where was he? Why was there no lights? Why was he restrained to a metal table by leather straps?

"Is anybody there?" He called out, looking around in a panic. He wasn't getting out of here any time soon.

"_Nikodemos Antonov, representation of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, do not panic. You are here for a reason. Refer to me as the Puppeteer, if you wish to speak."_

"Puppeteer? Where the fuck am I?!"

"_You are in a… test of sorts."_

"Test? What kind of a test?"

"_It is one that is going to challenge your mental and physical endurance. Hanging above you is a small surgical laser, hooked up to a voice recognition machine. This machine is programmed to your speech, so your accent will not affect the recognition."_

"Can we get to the point? I don't care about details."

"_You cannot let your temper get the best of you here, Nikodemos Antonov. There are sensors on the table you are lying on that detect blood pressure. Naturally, if your anger spikes, your blood pressure does as well. This will cause the laser above you to burn a tally into your skin, as well as if you don't do something correctly. For every five tallies you receive, it will send a message to the restraints, which will tighten electrically, until there is nothing left to tighten around. Everything here is hooked up to everything else. There are no loopholes, and you cannot move due to your restraints."_

"Alright… What the hell do you want me to do?" Macedonia asked calmly, realizing the severity of his situation. He couldn't get angry; he didn't know about the rest of the world, but he knew he didn't want tallies burned into his skin.

"_I am going to ask you questions. You are a mathematical genius, Nikodemos Antonov. You have devoted your life to not only your people, but the studies of Mathematics."_

"So… This is going to be doing complicated mathematics without a pen and paper to solve it on."

"_Precisely. You must do this all in your head. For each problem, you get seven minutes. Mind over matter, Nikodemos Antonov, and control over chaos."_

Nikodemos took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Alright. I can do this. Bring it."

With a few beeps, the machine in front of him turned on, showing a bright blue screen. White numbers and letters were displayed, showing an equation Nikodemos smirked at. So easy for him to do.

_5x^-2y^10 over 2x^-1(-3x^-3y^-1)^-2_

Closing his eyes and thinking silently, he took a few moments, before speaking out his answer.

"(45/2)x^-7 y^8."

The machine beeped, and the screen changed to a different equation. At the corner of the screen there was a fraction, showing how many questions he had right, out of how many he was going to do total. At the moment, he had one of one-hundred questions.

Staring at the equation on the screen, he went through the process of figuring it out, but was slightly unsure of his answer.

"… 4… 47x…?"

The machine beeped, and a bright laser turned on. Macedonia cried out in pain as the first tally was burned into him, towards the right side of his right pectoral.

"_The answer was 48x, Nikodemos."_

"Yeah, yeah…" Nikodemos took a few breaths. "Let's keep going."

He noticed that the fraction at the corner of the screen had changed, now showing one out of one-hundred-one questions. So for each one he got wrong, he had to answer another one, added on to what he already had to do.

This was going to be a long time strapped to the table.

][][][

Waking up, he realized he was dangling by a rope around his ankle above darkness. His eyes widened and he used the strength in his well-toned muscles to reach up and grab onto the rope, pulling himself up to stand on the portion of the rope that had become loose and come off his ankle upon moving.

"What the fuck…?"

"_Branko Njegos, representation of the Republic of Montenegro, do not be frightened. You are here for a reason. Refer to me as the Puppeteer if you wish to speak."_

Montenegro looked around cautiously, pushing back any thoughts of falling before speaking.

"Puppeteer… Where… Where am I?" He asked.

"_You are in a course, meant to test your physical and mental endurance. The rope you are currently clinging to is suspended one-hundred feet in the air above foot-long titanium spikes. Above you are a series of platforms. Some are sturdy, and can hold your weight. Others will collapse at the slightest touch. Each one you must swing on the rope to reach; you must make the decision to either get off of the rope and stand on the platform to rest, or fall at least one-hundred feet to a painful landing. You cannot die, as you are a representation, but you will not ever leave if you do not reach the top of the course, where the final platform resides, five-hundred feet up."_

"You… You've got to be kidding me."

"_I am not. Branko Njegos, as you go up, it will get colder, and colder. At the top, it is a mere thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit. As you are intelligible of, sweating is one of the worst things you can do in the cold. It will exhaust you and make you weak, and unable to continue to climb. If you are able to find a platform to rest on, you may rest, but even if they are sturdy ones, they are timed to collapse after a minute of you being on them."_

"This is going to be a physical challenge primarily… but… I'll have to keep my wits about me if I want to last… I'm not going to question why I'm here or who you are… Let's just do this. Do I have a time limit?"

"_You have ten hours. If that limit is passed, the rope you are currently on will fall, and along with it, you will."_

"Alright, then… Let's get this started."

"_You may begin."_

Montenegro took a deep breath, grasping the rope tightly in his hands and pulling himself up, using his legs to assure a hold on the rope. Slowly, but surely, he made his way up, eventually reaching the first platform.

It was just out of his foot's reach, which meant he would have to create some swinging force to reach it. Moving back and forth, he eventually created a minor pendulum swing, able to tap the platform with his foot, and see if it was safe. He, upon assuming its safety, jumped from his place on the rope to the platform, landing on his feet.

He took a moment to compose himself; he had been climbing for what must have been a half hour, and he had just now reached the first platform.

"Hey Puppeteer?"

"_Yes, Branko Njegos?"_

"How many platforms are there total? And are they spaced a certain distance from each other?"

"_There are twenty platforms, only seven of which are safe. They are placed every twenty-five feet."_

"Alright, so…" Branko did a bit of math in his head before sighing. "I need to climb faster. I'll run out of time if I keep going at this pace."

As he went to leap for the rope, a large clang was heard, and what was under his feet collapsed. Montenegro plummeted about twenty feet, catching the rope only five feet from its end, burning his hands from the friction.

He held himself there for a moment, breathing panicked breaths, heart pumping fast, sweat starting to form on his body. He chuckled a bit, shaking his head.

"Well… Looks like I've got no choice but to climb."

][][][

He awoke to water under his feet, which were firmly tied to the floor. The room was lit with a single light that dangled above his head; he saw a speaker next to the light. He struggled against the ties around his hands and feet that bound him not only to the floor, but also to a rather uncomfortable chair.

"_Novak Novkovic , representation of the Republic of Serbia, do not resist. You are here for a reason. Refer to me as the Puppeteer, if you wish to speak."_

Novak glared up at the speaker. "Puppeteer, I demand to know precisely the reason I am bound to this chair."

"_Do not be demanding, Novak Novkovic. This is a test, to see how much you are willing to admit to save your own life. You see, there is a pipe under the very chair you sit in that is slowly feeding water into the room, which is sealed. The water will rise slowly, and if you don't satisfy me with honesty and admitting your guilt, it will drown you."_

"What do you mean admitting my guilt? I haven't done anything wrong!" Novak protested, emerald green eyes furious.

"_That is where you are wrong. There are such things in the past that you have done that you refuse to admit. That you refuse to speak of again, in fear of your own guilt; in fear of your own insanity. I want you to choose one such thing; a massacre from the Bosnian War that you yourself participated in. I want you to tell me exactly what you did, how you did it, what you felt, why you were doing such things… I want you to admit that you have done wrong, and that you are guilty of appalling crimes."_

Novak stared silently, almost somberly, in spite of the task ahead of him. What would he say? How would he even _remember_ any crimes that he had done during the Bosnian War? Those years, he wasn't himself. He was utterly insane. Out of his mind. There was hardly a thing he remembered to full detail.

"What if I don't remember anything, or don't remember certain details of things if I do manage to remember something I did?"

"_I can look past some details. But I will be able to tell if you are hiding things, or are holding back. If you become emotional, let the tears fall. Let yourself cry. It only adds to the intensity of this test."_

"Okay… And if I just blatantly refuse to participate in this test, I'll die?"

"_Precisely. I will give you one minute to think of an event in the Bosnian War that brings you guilt; a massacre that you participated in."_

Novak sighed, looking down at the damp floor, thinking, trying to remember something; anything that he could possibly retell. After about forty-five seconds, he nodded his head solemnly.

"Ahatovići."

"_The Ahatovići Massacre is your final choice?"_

"Yes. It was early on in the war; I can remember it more clearly than others that went on later."

"_Very well. You may begin."_

Novak took a deep breath, before starting to speak. This was going to be difficult.

"The date was June 2nd, 1992… I was standing outside Ahatovići with a large group of Army of Republika Srpska soldiers. About forty of us, I believe… We were waiting for the command to stop shelling the town; I had arrived a few minutes after they had started. I had just gotten there from Belgrade; I had been in a meeting with some government officials who had given me orders to support the Army of Republika Srpska, and give them morale. I mean, what could be better than having the representation of the nation you're fighting for be there beside you? At the time, I didn't really think it was bad for me to actively participate in these raids and such on the towns."

Novak looked to his feet, where the water was rising; it was up to about the middle of his foot. It was icy cold. He took a moment to think, and then continued.

"We finally got the order, and then went into the town with one objective on our minds…"

][][][

Waking up with a start, he sat up quickly, glancing around. There were white walls on three sides of him, and a path in front of him. It was very, very warm. A sticky, humid air that almost immediately had him sweating.

"What in the name of…" He trailed off, standing slowly, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.

"_Andelko Begovich, representation of the Republic of Croatia, do not waste your energy. You are here for a reason. Refer to me as the Puppeteer, if you wish to speak."_

Andelko looked around, an eyebrow raised at the voice he knew had come from a speaker above him somewhere. "Puppeteer? I am no puppet of anyone's."

"_You are the first to raise the statement that you believe you are not a puppet. You listened fully. Good. Andelko Begovich, you are in a maze. You have started in the center, and will have to work your way to the exit, which is at one of the four corners. To make this test more difficult, there are a number of physical and psychological factors that are in play. You may have noticed the humidity and the heat in the room. That is meant to test your physical endurance; if you exhaust yourself, you will most likely pass out and be unable to finish the course. To add to that, at each dead end, there are things that will most likely make your blood pressure skyrocket due to anxiety. Things that will make you remember moments in your life that you don't want to remember."_

"I feel like a mouse in a madman's lab. Why am I here?"

"_Go through the test, Andelko, and you will learn exactly why I have put you up to this."_

Andelko sighed, shaking his head. "Very well; I'll play this game of yours. When can I start?"

"_Whenever you please. Just know that the temperature will rise exactly two degrees each hour. You must get out of here before your body overheats and fails."_

"Alright then. This is unfair as all hell, but it seems that I don't have much of a choice, now, do I?"

He walked forward until he reached a two-way split. He could go left, or he could go right.

"Hm… I'm going to need to remember where I've already been, so… I'll need some sort of map or marking…" He glanced around for a few moments, and searched his pockets, before deciding that in order to know where he'd already been, he'd take off his black t-shirt, tear it to pieces, and leave a small trail. It would also cool him off; the heat in the room was already enough to make him sweat. It had to be at least ninety degrees, plus the humidity.

Andelko decided upon going left, and walked calmly to get to the end of it, or reach another split. Along the way, he left small pieces of his shirt to mark that he had already walked along that path.

When he reached the end, he saw an object on the floor in a small pit so that he wouldn't have seen it walking there. It was a sword; one Andelko recognized. It was the very sword that he had been stabbed with during the Ottoman incursion into Europe in the 1400s. The Croatian representation raised his hand to his side, feeling the scar he still bore even after hundreds of years. So many bad memories of battles lost and becoming a place of death… He could feel his heart begin to race.

"Calm down, Andy… That was hundreds of years ago… You're fine. Just turn around and go; you're fine." He told himself as he turned on a heel and walked off, going further into the torturous maze that the Puppeteer put him in.

][][][

"_Do you really think they'll all complete their tasks, Puppeteer?"_

"_Yes, I do. They are a strong bunch of representations. The only things in their ways are the memories that plague them, and the limits they have. Each challenge represents something different for them."_

"_Could you explain to me that? I have a hard time understanding why they are doing certain things."_

"_Bosnia has always been ridiculed as a broken man; an insane man who would be put in an asylum if he wasn't a representation. That is why he is in a padded cell. He has been one not very keen to using his senses to solve problems, especially that of touch. He must find the door and the key using his hands to feel for an exit. To feel for an escape. It is something he has never done before, and I know it makes him uncomfortable, knowing that he is unsure of what lies underneath the padded walls."_

"_Alright. What about the others?"_

"_Macedonia is very mathematically intelligent, but doesn't like to show it. He is also very fidgety, and hates to be stuck in one place for too long. For him to be strapped to a table, threatened with scars on the seemingly flawless body that he takes pride in, he is in an utmost uncomfortable position mentally and physically. The only thing that can save him from scars and pain is his intelligence, which he doesn't seem reluctant to use since he has no choice. He may escape after all."_

"_It is still too early to say though."_

"_True. Onto Montenegro… He is an interesting case. He is not haunted my memories as much as the others, but his feelings are something that I can easily comprehend. He is hesitant. In order to stay alive, he must make decisions as to either keep climbing, or try to find a safe platform to rest on. He must also manage how quickly he does things, or else he is at risk of becoming too cold to continue. If he uses his strength and his mind correctly, he can push through this task, but it is up for grabs as to whether or not he will succeed."_

"_And Serbia?"_

"_It is all about guilt he refuses to admit. Everyone, even the Serbian people themselves, know that their representation had not always been insane when he had committed atrocities in the Bosnian War and the Croatian War. I know that the worst of his atrocities were in the Bosnian War. He chose something he was probably sane for, which is why he will most likely be able to remember more. I could understand, if chose a different one like Srebrenica, that he would not remember. Footage from the war shows that he was most definitely insane at that period in time. With the water rising in that room, he has to be quick and not hesitate to admit to his guilt, or else he will drown."_

"_And finally, Croatia, Puppeteer?"_

"_Croatia is a very straightforward man. Always to the point, never venturing far from the road. He hates to ruminate over things for extended periods of time. He wants things done, and done simply. With the maze, he must think, and remember. It is not so simple as he wants it to be. With the objects I have placed, and the conditions I have put him in, he has to remain calm. He cannot risk getting flustered or angry. He cannot risk worsening his already bad predicament."_

"_May I ask why you kidnapped them just to put them through hell?"_

"_It is simple, really, but in due time, you will learn, and so will they._


End file.
